As you’re sitting at your computer or holding your phone or reading this on a tablet or eReader pretending to be a tablet (you know they are, I know they are, the eReader knows they are), are you thinking about the technology that you’re using? What all are you using it for? What does it mean to you that you can talk to your family wherever you and they are provided that they also have access to the same technology that you’re currently using?
I know that I didn’t often think about the technology that I use daily and just what it means. There are times that I have:
-being able to call 911 for my mother when she had a stroke
-keeping in contact with family when they are all scattered throughout the States doing something with their lives
-being able to attend college even though I’m only awake at night for a few years
-knowing that my niece’s eye was saved from infection because of medical technology that didn’t exist when I was her age at the time
But I don’t think about these things often. I just plop down on the sofa and pull up my laptop to surf through the internet in a way that I couldn’t when I was a teen.
It’s because of this surfing that I do now as an adult that I came across a use for technology that combines several of the things that I only sometimes think about.
A young woman came to the United States with her new husband last year in 2013. She was smart and educated and was looking to further her education in Minnesota. She wasn’t able to do that, but it is what happened after she was admitted into the hospital that really made me think about the technology that I take for granted every single day.
This young woman, Sanaz Nezami was sent to the hospital with severe head injuries and due to severe swelling of her brain there was no blood flow in her brain. Her family lived in Iran and they would never be able to make it through all the red tape in order to make it over in time for her funeral, much less be able to visit her in the hospital. The hospital staff were able to set up a laptop with a webcam in her room to make it possible for her family to keep tabs on her and to see her.
This isn’t something you think of for use with our technology unless it’s dealing with business or the military. Everyone involved were civilians and/or hospital staff. It was a simple laptop to laptop connection that is easily setup using devices bought at a Wal-mart.
I have heard of families being able to attend a wedding via the web, but have never seen a family from so far away be able to keep eyes on their daughter/sister/cousin/friend who was in the hospital and dying. The staff at the hospital would make sure to talk not only with the patient who was never able to respond but with her family at the same time and complete requests for said family so that their daughter/sister/cousin/friend knew she was loved even as she was dying and unable to see or react or possibly even hear for herself. She would hopefully be able to feel the fingers that brushed back her hair and placed a gentle kiss on her brow before she died.
Source:
Breathing In 